David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers

Hat Band

The power of the hat goes without saying. (If that were actually so, I would probably end this post right here.).

I've had a lot of hats in my time. The hat I wear most often now is a black fedora. It's a blues man hat. It says something about the way I feel about playing the blues, showing a respect for tradition, but also acknowledging the effect that it has on the audience when I play. An announcement to all assembled: here are the blues.

Like a lot of kids, I grew up wearing baseball caps. I once played the blues in a workshop setting while wearing a baseball cap. It was one of my favorite caps, one of the two that I bought in Hong Yeh village in Taidong. It had a cool red "maple" leaf on the front, and the words "Baseball birthplace in Taiwan" printed around the leaf. It was at the same time patriotic and subversive.

Another favorite hat of mine is a tam in the colors of the Jamaican flag. I would never wear it playing the blues. It just wouldn't feel right. I wear the tam when I'm recording something with a dub feel on my computer. I used to have long hair, and then at least I could fill the tam with my hair. Now, I wear my hair so short, a beret would probably be more appropriate. Cable car operators in San Francisco wear black berets, something like special forces berets, with all sorts of pins on them. I could see a blues man wearing that, especially in a smoky club on Divisadero, after hours.

Somewhere in my mother's attic is an old army helmet from World War II that I played in when I was a kid. It is hard to imagine playing the blues in such a hat, but I suppose if I were in an air raid, and there just happened to be some instruments handy in the bunker, a steel helmet might be just the thing. If I were playing a steel National, I'd want to be wearing one of those shiny steel helmets that color guards wear.

I've had quite a few ski hats. If were in Churchill, Manitoba, on the shores of Hudson Bay, playing my washboard, I might think that such a hat would be quite suitable, especially if it were snowing. I don't think I would want to wear one with dangly balls, though. It would be quite distracting to the audience, I think, if while I were grooving to the beat, the dangly balls on my hat were bouncing along as well.

I had a straw Panama hat years ago. I think it was made in Ecuador. I'd play the blues in a Panama hat, and I would probably want to be smoking a big Cuban cigar. I've never had a straw boater. I'd like to play the blues in such a hat, and if I had the chance, I'd do it wearing a striped sport coat in bright summer colors, and white patent leathes shoes. But not in Churchill, unless it were in the middle of the two weeks of summer.

Our blues hats announce to the audience that we are performers playing roles. Like actors on the ancient Greek stage, we put on masks, but not of tragedy and comedy; our hats signify the blues. The hats put the audience in the mood for music that speaks of the drama of life. The blues is both tragedy and comedy, and our blues hats help us to communicate that with our music.